Arsenio Toledo – April 4th, 2022
Countries all over the world, especially in Europe, have started implementing policies that ration food and fuel.
Europe’s struggles with its food and fuel supplies began after most nations on the continent imposed economic sanctions on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. This threatened the flow of already-critical commodities in Europe and threatened to collapse already-struggling global supply chains.
As a result, the prices of everything from oil to wheat have soared, leading to multi-decade high inflation rates. Supplies of these essential products have also dwindled after exports from Russia were completely strangled.
In Spain, the country started experiencing sporadic shortages of different products like eggs, milk, and other dairy products almost immediately following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine. In early March, major supermarkets like Mercadona and Makro began rationing sunflower oil.
Spain’s left-wing government even went further and gave stores the option to temporarily impose limits on the number of certain products customers purchase.
In Greece, at least four national supermarket chains have started rationing food products like flour and sunflower oil due to critically low supplies caused by the crippled supply chains coming out of Russia and Ukraine.
The supermarkets claim the current rationing is only a preventive measure that will be rolled back once Greece’s supplies of flour and sunflower oil stabilize. Around 30 percent of Greece’s wheat imports come from Russia and Ukraine.
“The reason for the cap on these products is only precautionary, as our customers are concerned about the war in Ukraine,” said one official from supermarket chain Alfa-Beta Vassilopoulos. “We want to ensure we will be able to serve our customers’ needs in the future too.”